


peace

by Quillium



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 11:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19463389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: You want to try, to be a dad, to give that kind of love because you love Pepper and you have this house and you think you’ve learned to love in more ways than just grand gestures, you’re learning to love in quiet movements and subtle actions and you think you might be ready, or at least, as close as you’ll ever get.





	peace

You move out on a winter day.

“It isn’t ideal,” Bruce murmurs, idly, like he isn’t really thinking about what he’s saying. He says that because of the cold, of the way frost curls onto the grass, damp and muddy, and the earth is stiff against your feet.

The words bounce off you. You ought to notice, you should, but you don’t, because it is perfect, ideal or not. You are moving to a home you built with your own two hands to live with the woman you love and the child in her stomach and you have dreamt of this day for years.

You lived the last few weeks in grief and movement, hands always rushing forward to distract you from the empty way your stomach rolled when you think of all the ways you failed, tacked up in your head like tally marks, sharp and clearly defined.

But this is a step closer to peace, personal peace, maybe not the kind you thought of when you created Ultron or Vision, but the kind you thought of in the quiet mornings with Pepper warm in the bed beside you, sun streaming in through the window.

The air is cold and the wind creeps in through your jacket when you step out of the car but it doesn’t matter because today is the day that you begin living in your new home, you have dreamt of this day and it has finally come.

Your hands are a bit numb and your nose is itchy and your socks are steadily soaking away but Pepper’s palm is warm against your knuckles and it is perfect all the same.

__

You dreamt of a kid.

You never knew if you really wanted one, were always scared, but you met Peter and you look at Pepper and you want that kind of life, that peaceful, normal life, you want someone to love the way you love Pepper, you want someone to spoil rotten and you know Pepper wants it, too, she’ll just never say it because she was always scared that Iron Man would come first, that you would galavant off to save the world and never come back and there’d be a kid, left, in your house, waiting for a father who would never return.

You were scared of that, too, which is why you try to make promises, even though the two of you both know that you’re no good at keeping them.

You want to try, to be a dad, to give that kind of love because you love Pepper and you have this house and you think you’ve learned to love in more ways than just grand gestures, you’re learning to love in quiet movements and subtle actions and you think you might be ready, or at least, as close as you’ll ever get.

Pepper volunteered at camps and children’s charities and you’ve seen the way she’s looked, something wistful maybe, like she dreamed of that someday in a future where everything was peaceful and nothing could ever go wrong.

Everything has gone wrong and you have survived and maybe now, now that the world has ended, you can start a new one, a peaceful one, with a kid.

__

You are so fucking terrified. You have never been this terrified before.

There is a child. In Pepper’s arms. In your wife’s arms.

She’s small and tiny and kind of raw and your throat is clogged up and you can’t breath and you’re terrified and awed and utterly in love.

You feel like you’re falling and you always believed that people walked in love but you’re falling in love in this moment, head over heels in free fall.

Morgan cries and Pepper looks tired and you never realized that life could be this good, that living could be so wonderful and hopeful and beautiful.

You want to give Morgan a peaceful world.

You want to give Morgan whatever you can.

You hold Pepper’s hand and the nurse washes Morgan and Pepper whispers, “I can _finally_ drink now.”

You laugh, because you’ll drink some root beer while Pepper downs actual beer, and Morgan is alive and in perfect health and the world ended with Thanos but it begins with Morgan.

__

You used to think parents who talked to their babies were ridiculous, but now you’re one and you understand perfectly.

Morgan babbles ridiculously and you act like she’s the most fascinating thing in the world, because she is, her and Pepper. Morgan is your world. She giggles and shoves a finger against your eye and you whisper _no, ow_ even as you laugh and kiss her cheek.

She makes a strange noise and you hum _is that so_?

Let the others deal with the mess Thanos left behind. You’re perfectly happy, here, in your bubble. You tried to fix the world once and you broke everything.

And now—now, even if the world is fractured, _your_ world is perfect.

__

Pepper starts reading to Morgan when she turns three, reads her picture books each night. Sometimes you just listen, lying beside them, falling asleep to the cadence and melody of Pepper’s words.

Other times you make wise cracks, Pepper rolling her eyes fondly at you and Morgan saying _daddy, I’m trying to listen!_

You laugh _sorry, sorry_ , not sorry at all and Morgan is annoyed by your interruptions but they make her smile, too.

When Morgan is older, she’ll go to her own bedroom, sleep by herself and decorate the walls with dumb posters of celebrities you won’t know the names of.

But for now, she’s your kid, and the three of you spend each night together in a king sized bed.

__

Peace isn’t still. It’s loud. It’s your kid jumping on you in the morning and shouting “Wake _up_ , daddy, it’s already _eight_!”

It’s you grabbing her and lifting her in the air and spinning her around and saying, “Nooooo.”

Peace is Morgan racing you to the lake and it’s Morgan deciding to throw toilet paper all over the living room “because it’s Halloween!” and peace is the fact that your only problems are small problems.

Peace isn’t reading a quiet book by the fireplace, it’s racing around acting out scenes as Pepper reads from a book in the most dramatic voices, Morgan giggling when you accidentally trip on the run and land on Pepper’s lap.

Peace is loud and vibrant and you love every second of it.

__

When she turns four, Morgan starts to hang out in your workshop. You’d rather she not because it’s dangerous, but you can’t seem to stop her, so you child proof it the best you can and make a little corner for her with child-safe gadgets to play with and tell her all the ways she can hurt herself on the not-safe gadgets.

She avoids those but she loves the suits, excitedly waiting for the day she turns fourteen, when you promise to make her one.

“When you’re twenty,” you say.

“How about when I turn five?” she bats her eyelashes.

You put down your screwdriver because safety and jab your finger at her, “No.”

“When I’m six, then.”

“No.”

“ _Daddy_.”

“When you’re eighteen! There. Final offer. Not going down anymore.”

She smiles and whittles you down six whole years. You stop at fourteen, because you know if you hold off any longer, she’ll have made her own suit before sixteen. She’s clever and you’re teaching her, after all.

You’re so excited to see what she can do once she’s older. She’s going to take the world by storm, your girl.

__

You don’t get to see that.

The Avengers come with plans for time travel, plans to fix things.

You’ve moved on.

You don’t _need_ to fix things. Things are so perfect. The world is so perfect. You have a kid. You have a home. A family.

You have peace.

You built your home when things weren’t ideal and it became ideal. It became perfect.

 _No_ , you say, and you mean it.

Mean it until you see the photo of Peter that you should have thrown away years ago but just couldn’t bear to.

Mean it until you think of a kid that you knew, ages ago, before this quiet peace.

And you don’t—you don’t want to give up what you have now. You refuse to give up what you have now. But if you could have the best of both worlds—

It’s unbelievably selfish.

You ask FRIDAY to run the simulations anyway.

__

They’ll say you died to save the world. That you died to be a hero. Which is nice and all. Sure. Yeah. Whatever.

You don’t.

You die for Peter. You don’t want to say that because it sounds so fucking selfish, so cruel, to die for the sake of a single person and be willing to forget the others.

But it’s true. You only cared about Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Morgan and Peter.

Pepper, Rhodey, Happy and Morgan all lived. Peter died.

So you die for Peter. A life for a life.

They’ll say you gave your life so half the world could live.

And it sounds pretty but it isn’t true.

You found peace in Morgan. In Pepper. In watching your kid grow, in loving, in believing that Morgan would have a future where it wasn’t perfect but she was happy.

You’d die a million times for Morgan.

You die once for Peter. For his future.

Morgan’s your kid. So was Peter, once upon a time, before a titanic planet and dust in your arms.

Strange holds up one finger.

You know what you have to do.

And you die at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Had some fun experimenting with this one. Hope you all enjoyed it.


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